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Instance grouping guide
Original by Albino on Burning Legion. Overview As the veteran of many a good Instance Group, and even more "bad" Instance Groups, it has occurred to me that the difference between success and failure in an Instance has less to do with the Classes/Levels involved than it does with the simple fact that many people do not know how to function in a Group environment. Most novice players tend to believe that an Instance Group is the same as grinding mobs with four of their friends. Nothing could be further from the truth, and this belief is responsible for an incredible amount of needless death, failure, and lost time. Anyone who has ever been with a veteran Instance Group knows that the difference between a knowledgeable group and a novice group is like night and day. A veteran group runs smoothly, quickly, and accomplishes their goals with a minimum of downtime and death. Conversely, a novice group quickly turns into frustration and chaos. Yet a "bad" group can quickly become a good one with only a small amount of effort, if everyone involved is willing to cooperate. Expert Instance Groups all exhibit the same characteristics, regardless of the actual composition of the group. Those characteristics are: * Teamwork * Patience * The ability to focus on one task at a time. * A knowledge of each member's role in the group. The Pull This is Stage One of the battle. There should be one designated Puller. Attempt to Pull one mob at a time without Aggroing the entire group, and Pull mobs from weakest to strongest. The most common mistakes novice players make when Pulling are: * Failing to designate an official Puller. * Multiple players Pulling more than one mob. * Pulling from the middle of a group. When there are large groups of mobs that cannot be pulled individually, the pull becomes more complex. This is when crowd control skills become very important. The designated puller should know the capabilities of each party member and when to use them. The most well-known crowd control is the Mage's Polymorph, but there are several others, some of which must be used before aggroing the mobs. See Crowd Control for more information. The party should know which crowd control abilities are going to be used before the pull. Usually a simple "sap left, poly right, hit the one with the red arrow" is sufficient, but take time to prepare for difficult pulls. The Battle Battles in an Instance should be precise and controlled. Novice players often behave the same way in an Instance that they would when soloing: they separate and attempt to fight individual skirmishes. This defeats the entire point of Grouping, and virtually guarantees a Wipe. Instances are designed to be almost impossible for a single player, so your Group must try to act as a single entity. The most common mistakes novice players make during battle are: * Scattering, thus drawing Adds. * Failing to assist the Tank. * Failing to keep Aggro off the Healer (or Nuker). * Pulling entire groups of mobs. * Failing to act as a team. Post Battle This wouldn't seem to be much of an issue, but nothing distinguishes the novice from the professional more quickly than how you behave after a fight. First of all, you simply must have a team leader, and that team leader must keep the group together post-battle. Too often the Tank, having been kept at full health the entire battle by the Healer, will simply run on to the next group of monsters, totally disregarding the fact that the Healer now needs to regain Mana, or activate Quest items, etc. Many Instances are very complex, and it's easy to lose a group member if you run off without making sure everyone is ready. And once a group splits up in an Instance, a Wipe is the next inevitable step. The most common mistakes novice players make post-battle are: * Abandoning Casters who are regenerating Mana. * Wandering from the group, becoming lost or Aggroing mobs. * Failing to wait for members who need to accomplish Quest tasks. If you don't know your group's looting procedures, now is a good time to ask. Now let's examine some important aspects of Group Dynamics. Know Your Role The problem with most MMORPG players is that they want to be unique. While this is fine if you solo or duo, it's a liability in high-level Groups and/or Instances. In Groups, it's best to remember the words of Tyler Durden: "You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake." A lot of players get all huffy and say "I'm going to play my character my own way." That's fine, but it has no bearing on the purpose of this guide. This guide exists to improve your group experience, not to stroke your ego. If you refuse to play your designated role within a group, you are a detriment to those around you. Ask most good Group players what they hate worst in other group members, and 99% of the time they'll say, "Tanks who think they're Rogues and Priests who think they're Mages." Within the group dynamic, each member has a certain expectation of what the other group members will be doing. When that member goes against these expectations, chaos ensues, and a Wipe is virtually guaranteed. With that in mind, let's examine the role each member plays within a group. The Leader Normally, this will be whoever started the group. However, sometimes the Leader will be a group member who has knowledge of the task at hand. In any event, it's important that you have one, and that everyone knows who it is. The Leader charts the path through the Instance, decides when Pulls should be made, and makes sure that everyone else in the group knows what role they're expected to play. ; What you need to know as the Leader : People are counting on you to hold the Group together. If the group starts to devolve into chaos, it's your job to restore order. ; What you need to know to assist the Leader : Don't wander off on your own. Don't pull Aggro on the group. Don't argue. If you don't feel that you fit in the group, leave. The Puller This can be virtually any member of your group, although I myself prefer to have a Hunter pull if one is available. The most important factor is that a Puller be designated before you even enter the Instance. From that point, the Puller and only the Puller is in charge of starting each battle. Nothing causes more Wipes than a group where multiple members attempt to pull independently of each other. (See The Pull for more information on this topic.) ; What you need to know as the Puller : Don't pull from the middle of a group. Try to pull as few mobs as possible. If you are not the Tank, remain near the Tank so that Aggro can be assumed by the tank once the mob is in Melee range. ; What you need to know to assist the Puller : Under no circumstances should anyone other than the Puller cause Aggro during the Pull. If you're a Mage, do not Poly into the group unless the Pull gains Adds, and then only Poly the Adds. The Sheeper If you have a Mage along, their role in the open stages of a battle will be to Polymorph any Adds. One often hears Mages complain that "Polymorph is all they bring to a battle." That's absolutely untrue, but Polymorph is strongest skill that Mages bring to a battle. Why complain about your strongest skill? That's like a Warrior complaining that all they bring to a battle is Tanking skills. It's very important that Polymorph be used correctly, and that the other members of the group refrain from attacking Polymorphed mobs. Most newbie groups get all excited and try and attack everything at once. This is a recipe for failure. Of course, Polymorph only works on humanoids and creatures. Depending on the mobs in the instance, you may find that someone else is taking care of crowd control. Priests, for instance, can Shackle Undead. If you don't have a mage in your party, you might have to rely on a Rogue to sap or a Warlock's succubus to charm. A mage is still ideal, though, because that is intended to be his primary role. ; What you need to know to assist the Sheeper : Do not attack Sheeped mobs. Period. Have this tattooed on your hands if you need to. A Polymorphed mob can stay that way for a long, long time during a battle, and it's one less mob you have to worry about fighting. If your mage has said he will sheep mobs attacking cloth wearers (especially Priests), it requires a little discipline on the part of the cloth wearer to not attack the target. Picking a target Just a little additional note: It often helps to pick your sheeping target before the pull. This is not to say you should sheep before the fight has started, that is a fantastic suicide method as stated above. I find it does help, however, to let the party know which mob you will be sheeping. Obviously this requires some practice as you have to judge which mobs will accompany the pull, though, it never hurts to say "if the caster adds, I'll sheep it" or some such. Furthermore, you need to wait a while before sheeping. If you sheep a couple of seconds after the pull, odds are that sheep will wander back into mobs you're not ready to fight yet. This last point is negated if you have the misfortune to be puller and sheeper at the same time, as you can frost bolt, let the mob crawl towards you and pick another target just in time to sheep before the add engages you. --Malichi 02:17, 23 Jan 2005 (EST) Helpful tip: a mage can visually mark a mob using Detect Magic, a very inexpensive spell. I typically use a macro like this: /p I'm going to sheep this %t. /cast DetectMagic After the pull, obviously do not sheep mobs that your Melee members are attacking, as you'll just be wasting the spell. A polymorphed creature very rapidly regains full health/mana, so casting it on a damaged target should only be done as a last resort. Breaking Polymorph There are a number of differing opinions as to when you should break poly. One extreme is the player who breaks poly as soon as he's run out of other things to kill. Doing that to a dangerous elite when the party is low on health can and mana can get you killed. No serious player breaks polymorph when there are other active mobs except by accident. The ultra-cautious approach is to always, even if you've killed every other mob except for one single Polymorphed creature, allow it to remain polymorphed until it breaks Poly naturally. This allows the maximum time to heal or regain Mana. This approach is fine if you prefer the game slow and methodical. However, it is worth bearing in mind that, while a poly is active, you are still in combat and cannot eat or drink. There is also the difficulty that it can catch you unawares, and that mob will head straight for the mage. Finally, especially if a warrior has a full rage bar, it might actually be better to let him unload that rage immediately. As with all of these things, it's a matter of judgement, but the following guidelines for breaking should help: * Eliminate all other mobs. * Check the rest of your party's mana and health. * Try to get aggro on a tank and off the mage. * Especially true for groups you don't know: ask them if they're ready. The Healer In the perfect world, this would always be a Priest. However, few people play them, and the few who do are primarily Shadow Priests. Thus, your Healer might be a Druid, Shaman, or Paladin. Please note that (assuming the levels are equal) a restoration Druid can outheal any but a holy Priest. Any Druid can outheal any Paladin. While a Druid can heal single targets much better than a Shaman, but the Shaman excels at group healing. For healing single units (a tank): Holy Priest > Restoration Druid > Other Priests > Other Druids > Shamans > Paladins For healing multiple units (most of the group is dieing) Priests > Shamans > Druids > Paladins (paladins have no aoe heals) In any event, the role of the primary Healer remains the same. For the sake of this guide, I will assume that the Healer is a Priest. The first thing to remember as Healer is that you are not there to nuke. There's nothing more annoying to other group members than a Shadow Priest who spams Mind Flay during battle. Again, I'm not going to argue with you about how you play your character. I'm not talking about your "inherent right to be a Shadow Priest." I'm talking about the role of a Healer within an effective group. Frankly, if the group needed a Nuker, they should have brought a Mage, who would also be able to Sheep. A minor note of dissent to the above: Many times in an instance you will be fighting single mobs at a time with limited chances of having adds. In that situation, it is of course permissible for a priest to use mind flay, especially if that priest can also cast Vampiric Embrace so that the Mind Flay also heals. It's pretty useless to have an entire party member who just sits on his thumbs for 70% of the instance. However, the priest should always keep plenty of mana in reserve just in case there is an unexpected add, as well as to ensure that he doesn't need to drink after an easy fight. He should never "spam" Mind Flay. And of course, the above is situational: in some instances, adds are a constant danger and no fight is a sure thing. In the right situation, though, a priest who is more than a heal-bot can help to speed up the run significantly. Brymulder 20:05, 31 Jan 2005 (EST) Pre-battle, a Priest should make sure that everyone in the group has Fortitude. Unfortunately, casting this tends to completely deplete your mana. Something of which plenty of other players are not aware. Note that, ideally, if you're going to shield someone, it should be pre-combat, which gains no aggro. The only other use for shield in a battle is as a "don't die" button. The first mistake a new priest makes is shielding the puller just after he has pulled. Although shield is threat-efficient, it happens all at once, and you will see the mob run at you every time you do that. Shielding a character who is dying because they've unloaded a massive amount of damage will never, ever, make you a target. There's a myth that shielding a Warrior means he can no longer effectively generate Rage. Good luck convincing a warrior that he's wrong about this. This must be said: if you find yourself using Shield a lot during a battle, it's a sign that one of the following things are wrong: * You're not paying enough attention to your Heals. * Your Tank isn't holding Aggro. * Someone in your group is pulling Adds when they shouldn't. The people who will typically need Shielding are Mages and other low-armor Nukers who have temporarily gained Aggro. Watch the lifebars of your Mages in particular, as one large Nuke can gain them a lot of unwanted attention from mobs. On the Healing front, use Renew early and often. If you find yourself Flash Healing, it's another good sign that you've let things get out of hand. In a well-run group, you'll almost never need to use Flash Heal. ; What you need to know as a Healer : You are there to Heal. Period. If you're not there to Heal, you shouldn't be there at all. : Your job isn't to keep everyone at full health, it's to keep everyone alive. If at the end, everyone has 2% health, it's better than everyone at 100% and one dead. If you've got a tank complaining that he's fallen to 80% health, he needs to get a grip. ; What you need to know to assist the Healer : The Healer is the heart of the group. You must keep Aggro off of them. Also remember that the Healer likes to occasionally gain experience, loot bodies for Cloth, and activate Quest items, just like you. Since the Healer is in back of the group, he/she has to do all these things after the battle is over, so do not simply run off looking for the next group of monsters. Also be aware that while the Healer is filling your Health bar, they're draining their Mana bar. Be considerate and allow them to recharge. *IMPORTANT- be sure to stay relatively close to the healer so that they do not have to run through mobs in order to be able to heal you. This is especially important in boss fights where new mob spawns will likely kill them along the way. Usually, the best idea is to establish a corner to stay in the general vicinity of. The Tank Regardless of which class is Tanking, it must be remembered that the primary job of the Tank is to hold Aggro. Much as Priests must avoid the temptation to Nuke, the Tank must avoid the temptation to try and duel one mob at a time. The Tank absolutely must realize that they are there to keep the mobs off the Cloth classes. If you see an Add go after your Priest, it's your job to pull it off. Far too often Tanks will just stand there, slugging it out with one mob, while the rest of the party dies. If your group is working properly, a Tank ought to be able to hold Aggro on multiple mobs at a time. Remember, as a Tank, it's not your job to kill the mobs. It's your job to keep the mobs from killing your other group members. As long as you have Rogues and Mages to dish out damage and a Healer to keep you alive, the one and only thing that you need to worry about is making sure that every mob in the fight is hitting you, not someone else. ; What you need to know as a Tank : Your job is to hold Aggro. Period. Especially keep mobs off your Healer, as the Healer is the guy keeping you alive. ; What you need to know to assist the Tank : Do not pull Adds. The Tank has a hard enough time without you pulling extra mobs on to him. Assist the Tank, and kill what he's fighting. If you're a Healer, know the Tank's health bar better than your own. Damage Dealers After the fight has started and the Tank holding Aggro, everyone who is not the Tank, Healer or Sheeper should assist the Tank. The biggest novice mistake anyone makes is to abandon the Tank and start dueling with non-aggroed mobs. Grouping is not about seeing how many mobs you can fight at once. It's about being fast, efficient, and safe. Target the highest level/Elite mob that's attacking your Tank, and help him kill it as quickly as possible. Please note: The exception to this is when you are trying to take down many mobs at the same time. Warlocks using large amounts of DoT spells, Mages using AE, and pets helping via off-tanking will be attacking other targets as well. In this kind of situation, the safest and most efficient choice (though many disagree), is to weaken most of the mobs before starting AE and making sure the tank is changing targets frequently while the Warlock's DoTs and AE take effect. -- AlexanderYoshi 10:45, 20 Jan 2005 (EST) The "All on one mob" call is the bane of every priests life. To be honest, if you have a tank who is managing aggro, that's fine, but usually he's not, or at least not perfectly. There are plenty of circumstances where a more appropriate strategy is "All melee chars on different mobs" or "Tanks on elites, damage dealers on zergs". A couple of heals nearly always pulls a couple of mobs off anything other than a perfect tank. Spreading out the pull so that the tank takes on the toughest mob and that one is killed last is a pretty good strategy for making it all the way through an instance in one piece. Phaedo When It All Goes Wrong Most of this Guide is obviously geared towards Pickup groups or Guilds that haven't yet established Raiding parties. If you're in a group that already works, you probably don't need this Guide. But what if you're in a group that doesn't work, and there doesn't seem to be a way to fix it? There are basic "incorrigible" personality types that will destroy any group. ; The Accidental Aggro-Master : This is the guy who's always running off from the main group, pulling Adds on the group from every direction. ; The Family Outfitter : This guy whines for every single piece of equipment, because "he has a brother who needs it." ; The Lone Wolf : You never even know who this guy is, because his locator dot is always half a zone away. ; Speed Racer : The inevitable member who runs at top speed towards every chest, Quest device, or shiny object in the Instance, usually resulting in Adds, a scattered group, and a Wipe. ; The Jackass : The guy that complains about everything. He's usually a Warrior complaining that the Mage is "rolling on all the Cloth items." When you find yourself Grouped with people like this, your best course of action is to simply find another group. If that's not an option, then do your best to ignore them, and/or ask the Group Leader to handle it. If you are the group leader, simply Boot them and find a new member. If they are the Group Leader, either deal with it or leave, but keep in mind that you're probably destined for failure. Summing It All Up In summation, it's not difficult to have a good Grouping experience. However, it's even easier to have a disastrous one. Remember that teamwork is the key, with each person filling their role to contribute to the success of the whole. The entire group must focus on each task as a team, or the entire group fails. Additional Tips Thoughts and tips not found in the original document. * When grouped with a Shaman, stay close to the totems he drops. Many of them affect any group members (or enemies) within 20 yards (distance may vary), and if you run away, drawing the monsters with you in most cases, you're basically wasting the shaman's mana. On the flip side of that, if the mobs start to stray a bit, try to draw them closer to the shaman's totems. Running away is usually useless anyway. Mob's will often chase you all the way to the instance entrance so running doesn't help. Also your back side is a MUCH nicer target then your front, do you want to die facing your foe, or running like a scared little girl? Who knows you may just kill the mob before it kills you, or weaken it enough that someone else can killing, preventing a wipe, and maybe the healer can rez you. * Be especially careful using fear in any Instance, as more often than not, your fear as a last ditch effort may draw more mob and turn a close call into a hopeless battle. As a general rule of thumb, simply dont use fear in an instance. Cases in which fearwould be an acceptable thing to do are only when 1: You are the Priest and are about to die in a situation where the group can obviously not survivie without you. 2: You are saving the Priest when he is about to die and the group can obviously not survive without him. 3: You are fighting a boss which can quickly drop a character and you have already taken out all nearby mobs. This is the only time in which the tactic of fearbouncing could be recommended in a party.